On faith

 I am going to be forty this year. I have been walking with God for some time now. To some, that's a long time, to some not enough to venture into making any kind of remarks about God or faith that can carry any weight. 

To the first I would say some days it feels like a lifetime, to the latter I would say you might be correct but do find peace in the fact that many other mediocre minds imagining themselves to be scholars have had the same audacity and now we're left with some ludicrous theories in the world that no one can erase, so what's one more?

Regardless of my years on this path of salvation, one thing that I have struggled with most was the notion of faith.

Throughout two thousand years of Christian history, great minds and small minds alike, have tried their best to articulate what faith is and how one is meant to go about it. The first thing I have heard when I have first opened my heart to the Gospel was, 'All you have to do is believe'. Even then it felt too good to be true and I knew by then that if something sounds too good to be true, it's not true. But who was I to question the great believers that have shown me the path to salvation?

Soon I have found out that I had to die to my old self every single day. Sometimes multiple times a day! I couldn't just believe my old self away, I had to actively lay down my wishes and wants in favour of the wishes and wants of God. That took action on my part, a lot of denial of my present desires in hope for a future cleaner version of myself and a lot – and I mean A LOT-- of failing to die when I was supposed to. There was a lot of discipline and seeking and not finding involved. A lot of unanswered prayers and soul-crippling battles. Sometimes I had faith, but most of the time all I had was the covenant which I had made with God and I have decided that among the many things I have started and did not finish, my walk with Him would not be numbered among them. Am I saying faith isn't important? Not at all. Faith is important because "without faith, it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." (Heb. 11:6, ESV) But is faith what we make it out to be? After hitting my own head against the wall too many times to count, I had concluded that I misunderstood faith and whatever faith is, it wasn't what has kept me on the path to glory. Grace was. Grace is. Grace will. His Grace.

 I won't make it home if it's up to me. His mercy and grace carry me. Believing is just the start to the race. It's not the finish line and it's not even the race itself. It's just that gun-shot you hear that alerts you to start running if you will.

Still, everything I hear lately is about faith. Through faith you can do anything. If you have enough faith your finances will miraculously increase. If you have enough faith your cancer will go away. If you have faith nothing bad will ever happen to you. Faith is no longer walking in faithfulness but some spot in your mind that you reach if you focus hard enough and you better fight like crazy not to lose your focus or you lose your faith and then the worst will happen. It sounds like positive thinking and sending good thoughts in the universe because thoughts will manifest themselves into good things for you. It sounds like The Law of Attraction, only the dumber version. Yet, we call that faith! And just to make sure people are convinced, whoever does the convincing throws a few misunderstood verses to make sure you have a guilt trip for questioning THE WORD.

This kind of teaching ends up making you fear to search, to question, to reason and it's no wonder that in the end the Church – and I do mean every denomination – has absolutely no credibility any more. Since the beginning the Church has tried to destroy everything that has dared to question its doctrine forgetting that their kingdom is not from this world, forgetting about how they should "always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behaviour in Christ may be put to shame." (1 Pet. 3:15-16, ESV) . Such things were childish and naïve to the believers who decided that the entire world should bend the knee to God or die! Such fine ambassadors we have turned out to be!

In placing faith above all else, our creed has become more important than mercy, grace and love. We forgot that even demons believe and shudder. Faith without action is dead. And it will be by our actions that we will be judged not by our faith. And the judgement will start with those who had believed (1 Pet. 4:17)

Should we take a look at our actions?

  The Church came up with the brilliant idea to become inquisitors and burn to the stake anyone that denied in any way shape or form God. All Christian empires tried to enforce Christianity upon whomever they conquered and God help anyone who didn't submit. Christianity destroyed many thinkers and philosophers because they have dared to question things as they have been presented by the Church. They punished where they could not convert with such sense of entitlement that it had turned their so called good deeds into vile oppression. They pushed people with their ignorance until people could not tolerate their audacity any longer. They pushed people like Nietzsche to the point where in order to be able to think he had to declare that God is dead and the Church killed Him. Of course, he meant that the Church and its many ridiculous rules which it has enforced onto whosoever had the misfortune of being in its path has killed God in the hearts and minds of people. He didn't see this as a victory for science (which he also critiqued as being just another form of religion) but proclaimed that now that God is dead, we have to replace Him with some other system. Quite accurately he prophesied that man will replace God with some utopian political system that will turn out to be the death of mankind. And we saw that being realized through the rise of communism and all totalitarian forms of government but that's not what I am trying to address here.

The fact that the Church has managed to bring this about through its entitlement and oppression of entire nations through edicts that had nothing to do with God or the Church as Christ has intended, is the saddest thing that could have ever happen to Jesus' sacrifice.

I can say, 'but that was the Catholic Church, or the Orthodox Church, or the Reformed Church, Anglican Church, not I!' but that would be a lie and I have decided to speak the truth.

It was I. I became an inquisitor in the name of God, but it was really just serving my own purposes. I have burned people to the stake for not believing in my version of truth. I have oppressed and killed in the name of God. I have pushed great thinkers into becoming atheists and even worse haters of my truth because of my own ignorance. I have done all those things because I am part of the Church. Not just the present day Church, but the Church of all times. I am part of the body of Christ and thus I am responsible for everything the Church has done, is doing or will ever do.

The Church doesn't need to change, I need to change. I can't persecute people in the name of God. I can't bully people in the name of God. I can't condemn people to hell because they don't believe in my interpretation of God! I can't gather people around me and chant in unity that God hates gays, or Muslims, or whatever it is I have decided to hate that day. Oh, and isn't it funny how God happens to hate the exact same things I hate? Isn't it funny how God just so happens to dislike the same things that I dislike? Isn't it funny how it just so happens that God loves whatever I love? Could it be a coincidence that God and I are so much alike? Or is it that I have carved an idol in my image and called it God and now I tell everybody what this God loves and doesn't love? And once I become aware of my actions should I carry on with this idol I have made for myself and continue to lie to myself that I serve God while doing so, or should I decide to tell the truth and accept to purge my soul of my idol and follow the one true God? I can't use my faith as an excuse to mistreat anyone that doesn't share my faith because in truth, whenever I do that I do it out of fear. I fear their words and actions because they shake my faith and I need to punish others for my lack of conviction. We have killed Jesus because we have feared His teaching was threatening our ways. We feel the need to destroy everything that threatens our faith. But if faith is true it should not fear whatever question is thrown its way. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. “ 1 John 4:18

I believe! Yes, but my faith doesn't require everyone to share that belief or die.

Faith has put me on this path. And I believed. Oh, how I believed! I believed my sins away. I believed my bad habits away. I believed my ugly character away. I believed every problem away. I have even believed for more faith! All to no avail. I still had all my bad habits, an ugly character and problems but a lot of faith. I thought it was alright because all I needed to do was just believe harder. So I have learned to hide all my shortcomings and to be louder in professing my faith so that other believers would not see and judge me for it. I have learned how to make myself vulnerable in front of my brothers and sisters because they would admire my humbleness. I have learned how to speak with authority and to make myself heard, whether it was in my prayers or in my sermons, so that others would see and admire my great faith. I have even convinced myself that I didn't know I was lying to myself. I wanted to follow God and for people to know that I was following God. Of course I was convinced that I was doing that for the Kingdom of God and for people to be saved, but in truth it was because I loved the attention.

You might think that once I had become aware of it I have stopped doing it, but no. My shameless pursuit was carefully masked by the appearance of faith or what I have chosen to believe faith was. I have no one to blame for this except myself. It is not the fault of some doctrine or other, it's not the fault of some teacher or other because I could have thought for myself at any point but chose not to. I chose to go with the flow. So while I prayed in company of others I crafted prayers that would get the loudest 'amen!' from the crowd, while I was preaching I crafted sermons that would make people marvel at my own righteousness and while I professed my faith I used words that would inspire people to believe.

I had lived that way for a long time. I exhausted myself with playing Christian. I did have moments of sincerity in secret but refused to acknowledge out loud that I was a fake. It felt sincere so what did it matter that it was all fake. Maybe a greater mind would have reached a different conclusion, but I, having a mediocre mind, could conclude only that I had to keep lying to myself.

I have replaced sacrifices to the Lord with praise and worship and would often lose myself in a trance induced by music and good wishes meant to be prayers. I traded obedience to the Truth for praise and worship. I have made my wishes as big as they could get as not to limit the Lord and wished them often in the sight of God under the guise of prayers and wrapped everything up in 'faith' to make them come true. Needless to say that whenever my desires didn't come true I used to turn towards heaven confused and asking 'why?' pretending that I didn't know the answer. Pretending that all I needed was more faith.

It took me a long time to understand the reason why in 1 Corinthians 13, faith is close connected to hope and love. It's because they are similar. Faith should act like love. I had to read it like this:

“Faith is patient and kind; faith does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Faith bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (vers. 4-7)

If faith does not resemble love it is useless. Faith that is so much like love that you cannot tell them apart. I need that kind of faith, not the kind of faith that is supposed to manipulate God into doing whatever it is I ask of Him.

I was in need of faith in order to accept God as the One that might hold the answers. I was in need of faith in order to hope against all reason. I was in need of hope that once the Truth has found me it would guide me in truth. I was in need of faith to acknowledge my own sinful and wretched condition and my unwillingness to change, truly change once I had become aware of it. I was in need of faith when I understood that I fall short of the glory of God no matter how much I scrub my soul raw to make it clean. I need faith when my endless need to find fault in everyone around makes me forget to look at myself. I need faith when I feel the need to be validated by all the wrong things. I need faith when I make fun of people that are not quick enough to respond. I need faith when I condemn everyone that doesn't subscribe to my own interpretation of Truth to hell. I need faith when I find myself gossiping just because I am bored or because I have nothing else to talk about with the person before me. I need faith that if I start again committed to do better next time even if I should fail, I should fight with all my heart to do better. I need faith in order to stop being so selfish and so greedy and make everything be about me. I need faith like I need hope and love. It is because of faith that I even try again every time I fail at reshaping my soul to fit more divine than I had the day before.

Faith is not magic. It's not the thing you do to get whatever you want. It isn't the excuse I use when I hurt others or force my views upon them. It isn't that extra boost my prayers need to be heard and get things my way. It's the hope that whispers to you in the darkest night when nothing is visible to you any more, not even your own self, “be brave! The path is still under your feet even if you can't see it. You are still on it! Don't be afraid, for the night will end and even if it doesn't, you'll use your hands to feel your way. Be brave! It's worth it! Even if you would gain nothing from this it's still worth it because you have promised you'll walk this path until the end. You owe it to yourself to be faithful. Keep walking! Be brave! He's at the end of this road! Keep walking!” 

by Cristina Pop